


Let's Switch

by Ellesra



Category: Naruto
Genre: Insomnia, Social Anxiety, Time Travel, body switch, personality confusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-01 22:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15783567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellesra/pseuds/Ellesra
Summary: Time travelling with two people is apparently way more disastrous than travelling with one. Now it only remains to be seen if they can turn that disaster into something good.





	1. First Impressions

Below them, lines crisscross in decided patterns. They step up to the spirals, stand at the centre of them and bend down. “Ready?” Naruto grins, and Gaara feels inexplicably bolstered by his bravado.

He doesn’t say anything. Just nods, the tension digging deep into the empty space in his head. Where there once were chains. Soon, he should have the monster back in there. That thought should fill him with dread, but strangely, it is not the part that worries him.

It is the thought of his family, the lives that he took from it. The knowledge of the future would be a great responsibility, and he can already feel the weight of it settle unsteadily on his shoulders.

“Alright then! We'll make everything better, believe it!” Naruto cheers, and Gaara nods once more, tensely.

They both bend down, each with a hand on the spiral. “One, two-”

At three, they both push their chakra into the symbol. It slowly lights up, following the spiral around their bodies, and spreading from there to the larger array. The two chakras meet in the middle, and Gaara feels slight satisfaction at how exact their timing is. Then he feels the drain. The seal is pulling not only the energy they have given it, but the corresponding chakra inside their bodies. It bears a horrible resemblance to the feeling of the Ichibi being pulled out of him, and his panicked eyes immediately go back to meet Naruto’s gaze.

The blond is smiling, not his normal exuberant grin, but apologetically. Gaara can see the drain on him as well, and soon the blue chakra runs into red. 

He doesn’t have the time to see the colours blend into purple, or hear the gasp from Naruto as the Kyuubi’s chakra surges. Gaara’s vision goes black, and the last thing he experiences is the rush of blood pounding in his ears, slowing until the beats of his heart stops completely.

///

The first thing he feels is warmth. There is brightness on his eyelids, sun warming his skin. A small smile makes its way onto his face, and he takes a moment to enjoy the feeling. It’s been a long time since he’s been in Suna. Lately, there had been too much rain for comfort, and Gaara is happy to be back to the warmth of his own home.

He draws in a long breath, and immediately sits up, his eyes wide. Before him is a window. It shows tall buildings he can’t recognize, and when he surveys the room, it is clear that he is not, in fact, in Suna.

The air is humid, which gives it away more than anything. He draws in another breath, and the sickly sweet smell of pollen makes him want to sneeze.

Turning around, the bedroom is markedly bare.

His feet hit the wooden floor, and it is cold to the touch. Gaara slips off the bed, and pads over to the window.

Below, there are busy streets, and when his eyes follow it he can see market stalls opening for the day in the distance.

There is a pit of anxiety in his stomach. This was definitely not how it was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to end up in Konoha.

///

When Naruto wakes up, it is not to the peace of his empty apartment.

_ Someone’s screaming _ , he thinks, as he jolts awake. His eyes fly wide, trying to take in the room around him, to see where it’s gone wrong.

The first tell, and it’s a very obvious one, is that there’s sand whirling around him.

He watches the motion for a few seconds, then realizes that the scream isn’t a person. It’s the wind, whirling together with the sand, screaming between cracks in the wall and the floor and the flying sand.

The second realization, is that it’s him that’s doing it.

Tamping down on his chakra  _ hard _ , harder than he’s ever had to even when Kurama was trying to grab control, the sand freezes in the air. The wind dies down, and there is complete silence.

**_You_ ** , says an ominous voice in his mind. Naruto frowns and closes his eyes, prodding at that presence with something he feels might constitute as a mind-finger.

There is a growl, drowning his own thoughts.

**_You’re not my child_ ** , the voice says, and Naruto tries to pinpoint where he’s heard it before.

His eyes fly open to observe the floating sand.

_ Shukaku? _ he thinks tentatively, more careful than he’s ever been with Kurama.

The Ichibi seems to catch that stray thought, because there is a malicious laugh ringing through his head.

**_You know my brother, do you?_ ** The presence demands, and Naruto feels foreign chakra flooding through his veins, grasping for control. He gasps with the effort to hold it back.

_ Yeah, he’s my friend! _ Naruto thinks, as loud as he can to drown out the many sounds in his head. 

**_That bastard’s never had any friends,_ ** Shukaku growls again, and seems to put even more of his attention to claiming control of his chakra use.

_ Stop that, you idiot!  _ Naruto rolls into a ball, hands on his head. He’s not sure what it is with the position, but it makes him feel more in control. And if he isn’t, at least his body isn’t going around attacking people.

**_What did you call me!?_ **

It’s strange to be talking to a bijuu outside of his mindscape. Especially with someone as forward as Shukaku.

Kurama was nothing if not a fox, and Naruto had started to see where that part of him shone through in his personality.

**_You even brought him with you!_ ** the bijuu rages, and Naruto’s eyes widen as the sand starts moving again, gouging deep scratches into the stone walls.

_ If you keep doing this, they might come here and hurt us! _ Naruto tries, but Shukaku’s scoff is so loud it makes his head hurt. The sand quickens its movement.

_ If you don’t stop, _ he tries again, his fists balled in determination,  _ I’ll seal you away so you can’t hurt anyone ever again! _

The sand stops abruptly. Naruto can  _ almost _ see the tailed beast staring at him in his mind, as if the Ichibi is trying to figure out whether he can go through with his threat.

_ You want to experience things, right? To see the things I see, and to fight when I fight? I had Kurama in me for a long time. He was caged, and could only experience things when I felt angry. Is that what you want? To stay inside a cage for the rest of my life? _

His mind quietens. The sand stops, and then it slowly comes towards him. It seems almost shy, the way it hesitantly lays itself against his skin, and Naruto can’t help but look at it in wonder.

He’s never felt an element like he does this one. The air is much less physical, and holds no weight. Not like the sand, that settles heavy and  _ secure _ against him.

**_Fine_ ** , grumbles through his mind. Then everything goes silent, and Naruto feels like he can finally hear his own thoughts clearly again.

It gives him the chance to actually look around. He can’t help a wince as he sees the damage done to the room. It is a simple living space, only a bed and a wardrobe, with no pictures or other decoration on the walls. Looking out of the window, he can see Sunagakure’s characteristic buildings looming over the straight streets. The street outside his window goes all the way to the other wall, and he can see a few people walking the street. They are far away, though, and don’t notice him watching them.

“Gaara?” he hears from outside his door. The voice is dripping fear, and it makes Naruto’s heart twinge for his friend.

Then his hand leaps up to his hair, and he pulls down a lock of red hair in order to stare at it.

He’s not just in Gaara’s room. He’s in Gaara’s body, and he even has Shukaku instead of Kurama.

Before panic gets a full grip on his mind, there is a knock on the door.

“Umm, wait a bit! I’m not dressed!” he shouts towards the doorway, and jumps towards the wardrobe.

There is very few choices, and most are with very dull colours. Naruto scowls, and pulls out some brown pants.

At least there is a sweater that is  _ almost _ a bright green, and that will have to do.

He pulls the garments on hastily, and rushes to open the door.

When he does, the person outside jumps back. Her eyes are wide and fearful, and Naruto can see her form a handsign in preparation. To flee, probably.

“Hi, Temari-cha- uhm, nee-chan!” Naruto greets. Her wide eyes widen, if possible, even further.

“I…” she starts, then stares at him helplessly for a moment.

“I heard the noises,” she tells him, stuttering through the sentence. Naruto tries to give her a bright smile, but falters when she flinches again.

“Sorry about that! I was having a nightmare,” he explains, nodding sagely at his own explanation.

It must have been a good one, because Temari nods. Then she edges away, and Naruto has to keep himself from reaching out to her in concern.

This is not like the people of his own village. Here, they are afraid of  _ him _ , not bitter and angry about something his bijuu did years ago. He might have attacked someone the day before, for all he knows. Someone might even have gotten hurt with Shukaku’s struggle against him. He wouldn’t know.

“There is… There is some food on the table. You can eat it, if you want to,” she utters, then hastily turns and walks away, her pace only one step short of running. 

Naruto definitely has some work to do here.

///

There is no food in the apartment. Or, that is, nothing that constitutes as food to Gaara, anyway. He had found a few packets of ramen, stacked in one of the cupboards in the kitchen, and a brand new stove with pots. It might have been enough for Naruto. Gaara, however, had never been very fond of ramen. It was not something they ate much of in Suna, too warm and fatty to do well in a desert climate.

So Gaara had gone out of the building, into the streets.

He feels way too conspicuous, even if Naruto hadn’t yet come to the orange stage of his life. The yellow of his hair pulls eyes towards him left and right, and every hateful sneers bring his shoulders a little closer to his ears. Less than a hundred meters after leaving the apartment, he already has to duck into a side street, just to breathe.

“Hey kid,” a voice to his left, and he jumps away, his hand rising to call on his sand-

Nothing follows the motion other than a small flare of chakra in his belly.

The shinobi in front of him doesn’t move, and with good reason. The ANBU mask is proof that they have nothing to fear from a little child like Naruto, even if he proves to be jumpy.

“What do you want?” he asks suspiciously, and he watches the ninja carefully as they lay out their hands in a nonthreatening manner. It is not that far away from the motion Gaara would use to crush someone, so the movement makes him more anxious than anything.

“Hokage-sama wants to talk to you,” the person says, and offers a hand.

“I can walk there myself,” Gaara responds, because there is no way he will trust anyone with Naruto’s body, especially not an elite ninja. 

The ANBU just shrugs, and disappears in a whirl of leaves.

Gaara manages to walk the route wrongly twice before he remembers that the Hokage’s office is in connection with the Academy. Seeing as the chuunin exams were held there, he does mostly know the way.

It is with an edge of annoyance that he finally walks into the administration offices. He walks past the mission assignment desk, into a hallway, and find himself before double doors that almost undoubtedly leads into the Hokage’s office.

When he knocks, the doors slide open, and he takes a look at the Sandaime Hokage and almost turns to flee.

Instead, he puts his hands behind his head like he’s seen Naruto do plenty of times, and walks into the round office.

“You called, Hokage-sama?” he says, trying to emulate some of the boldness Naruto always has. It feels like he’s falling short, and scrounges his mind to try and come up with a reason why he would have changed so much in a single night.

The Hokage’s brows are rising, and he takes a thoughtful intake of smoke from his pipe.

“I wanted to know how you are doing with the new apartment, Naruto-kun,” the kage says, and there’s a tone of contemplation in there that Gaara really does not like.

“It’s going fine,” he says, and forces himself to shrug. Being emotive does not come naturally to him, but he knows it’s the only way to make sure Naruto hasn’t changed  _ too _ much in the views of other people.

“I was just about to go and get some food. If I am to become Hokage, I need to eat properly,” he speaks, and even if the voice sounds like a younger version of Naruto’s, he can’t help but feel that the words don’t.

“Oh? Well that is a very grown-up way to look at it,” the Sandaime comments. Gaara shrugs again, and wonders if he’s over-doing it.

“Has something happened? I would have thought you would be more excited, what with starting the academy tomorrow and everything.”

Gaara barely keeps from flinching. Of course, he hadn’t even thought about the shinobi schooling Naruto was getting at this point in his life. He could have had classes today, and he wouldn’t have known.

“Umm… I wanted to ask you something,” Gaara says, trying to sound hesitant. He shuffles his feet, and bows his head a bit. His hands grip the edge of his shirt.

Glancing up, the Hokage is gazing back at him worriedly.

“Umm… Someone said something… About my parents…”

There is a sudden leap of tension in the room. Gaara has to fight against the urge of calling on his sand again.

“And I wanted to know. Is it true, that the Yondaime was my father?”

Gaara looks up again, tries to press some of Naruto’s hope into the look. Tries to bring up his own hope, with the thoughts that  _ someone _ might have loved him, he wasn’t merely an object of hate and killing and sadness.

“Who did you hear that from, Naruto?” and there is something dangerous there, Gaara thinks, underneath the gentleness someone would put on for a child. Under the surface, there is a forest fire, and Gaara knows that if it were discovered that he was, in fact, not Naruto, he would get thrown into that fire head-first.

“A big scary fox told me,” he says, because it’s better than throwing a nameless person into that blaze, for someone to get blamed for letting on the truth to a lonely child.

It’s so much easier to blame the Kyuubi. Gaara knows that the village knows next to nothing about the bijuu, how it’s seen as a mere chakra construct of anger and hatred, and he can use that. If they are thinking about the Kyuubi talking to him, they might not have notion that his change is anything but a newfound thoughtfulness.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, and he’s been wondering about it for some time himself. In his own village, there was no way they could hide from him that he contained the Ichibi.

Why would they want to with Naruto, when  _ he _ might actually be able to gain some amount of control?

“There is a lot more to this than you know about, Naruto-kun,” the Sandaime claims, and Gaara only barely holds back a scoff.

“Then tell me!” he demands, and feels like he finally sounds like the Naruto he knows.

The old man before him gives him a contemplative look.

And then he tells him, and Gaara realizes how much he is already changing.

///


	2. Foreign Impressions

There are two things Naruto has learnt about Sunagakure at this point.

Firstly, it is that they have a weird fascination with sandy beige. The place has nothing else, all sandstone and boring.

The second thing, is that Temari is a great cook. Naruto wolfs down the food at the table with gusto, as she stands in a corner of the room. She’s staring at him with what might be morbid fascination, as Naruto finishes the meal and rubs his mouth on his long sleeve.

When his gaze goes from the bowl to meet hers, she doesn’t flinch again. Instead she freezes, and he smiles at her sheepishly.

“Thank you for the meal!” he chirps, and watches bemused as she shakes her head and turns away. Seconds later she’s out of the room, and Naruto is left alone at the table.

**_Smooth,_ ** sounds dryly in the back of his mind, and Naruto frowns as he sticks out his tongue childishly.

_ Like you could have done any better. _ He grabs the bowl, and brings it over to what looks like a basin.

There is no water though, so how is he supposed to clean it?

Scrutinizing the basin, there is a pretty thick layer of fine sand at the bottom of it.

**_Of course I would have done better. I am the amazing Ichibi! No little squirt could make me falter!_ **

Naruto scoops up a handful of sand. Smelling it, it does indeed smell like the food he’s just eaten.

He slaps the sand into the bowl, and frowns down at it.

_ Is it magic sand? Does it absorb everything dirty or something? _

There is mocking laughter in his head. He tries several times to ask the tanuki how to use the sand, but Shukaku is clearly not in a teaching mood.

///

The first night of his back in the past, Gaara does not sleep much.

It is only partially because of his habit of insomnia. At the end of it all, Gaara had learnt to sleep properly, if only to regenerate chakra faster. If he wished, he could have forced himself asleep, at least for a few hours.

It is only barely because of the food he managed to scrounge together. After wandering the streets for a while, he had achieved to get some of the market stalls to sell him food. Most of the vegetables were foreign to him, but there had been a vendor from Suna that sold a curry paste he used to love.

Or, well, he loved the end result when Temari used it. What he made was too strong, and his stomach was hurting hours after eating it.

This was still not the main reason he couldn’t sleep.

In the back of his mind, he keeps thinking about the people he knows. The people who are here, who he had bonded with through a war, who would be mere children now. And even if he doesn’t know what they were like at this point, that doesn’t mean he stops imagining it. His brain keeps starting conversations with tiny versions of his friends, trying to map out what they would be like. How they would respond, what he would say back.

After several hours of this, he realizes his brain is merely going in circles. There is no conclusion to the thinking, nothing that feels like a good course of action. It means that he is not actually strategizing, but just being anxious about meeting people.

Shukaku would laugh at him, tell him that these ants could be easily crushed if they didn’t like him. It made the meetings as Kazekage more bearable, actually, because at the very least he could imagine Suna’s jounins being buried in sand whenever they were being particularly idiotic.

He shuts that thought down, because Shukaku isn’t ever coming back to him. It was a possibility before; now, it is simply wishful thinking.

Grumbling, he buries in his blankets, and stares emptily out at the dark bedroom.

Morning comes too soon, and yet he’s infinitely glad to leave the night behind.

///

Gaara has heard many things about Umino Iruka throughout the years. Naruto has told him about how the man saved his life, how he made him believe in himself, and also how the man had showed him love in a way no one else had cared to show him.

Nothing of what Naruto has told him prepares him for the hateful frown on the teacher’s face as he calls Naruto’s name.

So Gaara watches him. While lecturing, the teacher is free with his body language, showing excitement or other emotion easily through an emotive face and gesticulating arms.

In this lesson, Iruka talks about being a ninja, about the hard work and the darkness, but also about the comradeship and duty. It is clear he believes in every word that he is telling the class, but it also seems like Gaara’s classmates are not the attentive audience Iruka would have wanted. At the start they all seem to listen with stars in their eyes, but their attention quickly diverts from their teacher to each other as the lecture goes on.

Another assessment, is that Umino Iruka is strangely, painfully young. The man can’t be much older than Gaara and Naruto were at the point when the war started. 

With youth comes inexperience.

While Iruka is clearly passionate about teaching them, he keeps stumbling over his sentences. He keeps flushing over small mistakes, and also turns a bit too sharply when there is a sign of disrespect in the room. A child talking. An Akimichi eating loudly. A Nara already sleeping through the first lesson.

An impulse strikes suddenly, and he imagines other ways to make the teacher flush.

As sudden as the thought strikes, it is also stricken out of his mind, in favor of more practical thoughts.

Like: how should he reforge the bond between Naruto and Iruka? It was an important thing to Naruto, so Gaara would certainly make an attempt at remaking it. But would he even be able to?

Something had changed between the two in the years Naruto had gone to the academy. If Gaara knew anything of his friend, it was that he could make anyone take a turn for the better, by only being himself. Which meant that Gaara wouldn’t be able to replicate it, no matter how hard he might try.

“Uzumaki! Could you repeat what I just said?” Iruka asks loudly, and Gaara stares back at his teacher steadily. In those brown eyes there is something wavering, something not quite the right shade of anger to be authentic. Gaara stares long and hard, and thinks what he sees might be fear.

The rest of the class have all turned to watch them, some even whispering quietly among themselves.

“I don’t remember, sensei. Would you enlighten me?” Gaara says, and tries for a bright tone. He’s afraid it sounds a bit more ominous than he meant it to by the way his teacher flinches.

“Pay better attention, Uzumaki!” Iruka speaks again, not quite steady, and turns back to what he’s writing on the blackboard.

Gaara realizes that the answer to the question is probably written there. 

Perhaps it would be better for his relationship with his teacher if he paid attention to what he was saying in the future.

///

The next lesson of the day is taijutsu.

The two teachers, Iruka and Suzume, had obviously planned it as a way to release the energy that the first lesson had attempted to contain.

In theory, that was a great plan.

As for reality, Gaara sees the other children stand in poor stances of basic kata, and he can’t help but compare them to jounin. How the teachers finds it anything short of disparaging, he can’t begin to understand.

Then again, he remembers the patience on Kankur ō’s face, when he’d taught Gaara to fight without his sand. Kankurō must have felt something similar to what Gaara feels now.

After a while of going through different stances, they get paired off by the teachers. Iruka and Suzume demonstrate how to use the kata as a reaction to the other person’s attack. Iruka throws a punch, much slower than he normally would, and Suzume answers with a stance. Then she kicks, and Iruka goes into a different stance.

It’s all very simple, but Gaara can see some of the children already jumping up and down in anticipation.

When Suzume pairs him and Sasuke, he can’t help but be surprised. It must show in his expression, because she smiles at him.

“You seem to be at a similar level when it comes to taijutsu, Naruto-kun,” she explains, and then moves on to the next pair.

Gaara lets his gaze travel to Sasuke, who is staring intensely back at him.

Not in a hateful way, though. It is not the way the future Sasuke looked at anyone who stood in his way, like they were a particularly nasty thing he had just stepped in.

It is much more like how Naruto used to look at someone he needed to defeat. Determination.

Sasuke goes into a stance before him, and Gaara does the same.

There is a shout from Iruka, sounding over the noises of the class.

Immediately, Sasuke moves in. He is strangely fluid for a six year old, going in for a punch. Gaara counters, shoving the Uchiha away from him. Then he goes for a punch of his own, and Sasuke counters it with another kata.

They repeat this pattern, going tirelessly through the pattern again and again, until the motions are seamless, the blocks instinctual.

In the corner of his eye, Gaara can see the teachers making their way between the other students. They don’t interrupt his and Sasuke’s exchange though, and Gaara assumes it’s because they are at a higher level than the rest of their classmates.

Soon, the teachers call them to a stop again, Already, some of the students have managed to go into all-out spars, tackling each other into the dirt.

One such fight catches his eye. One of the combatants is Kiba, the boy growling and yipping playfully as he tries to get the upper hand on another boy. Kiba’s opponent is completely unknown to Gaara, even though the two are actually fairly evenly match in this kind of brawl.

Gaara turns his attention back to Sasuke. The boy had stopped moving, just as Gaara did, though he can still see the tension in his shoulders, ready to start the pattern anew. There is something calculating in those black eyes, and Gaara isn’t sure whether he should like it or not.

“So, everyone!” Iruka calls, hoisting up Kiba and the other boy, dangling from his hands by the collars of their shirts. “This was a nice start, well done all of you. It was good to see your capabilities, as well as your level of patience with the assignment,” he speaks, and levels a good-natured glare at the two he’s holding.

“It’s time for lunch. Meet back here in an hour!”

The class starts to disperse by the time Iruka has come to the word “lunch”, chattering loudly the moment it’s clear that the class is done.

Gaara hears two loud yelps as Iruka lets go of the pair of academy students.

He also realizes that he’s done a bit of an oversight. It hadn’t crossed his mind to bring any food. That there was a planned eating time during school hours, was one of the many small details Gaara had no idea about. Suna had been vastly different, and he almost cringes at the thought of Naruto navigating the foreign society of Gaara’s home village.

Then again, his friend seemed able to handle anything. So perhaps there is nothing to worry about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is pretty short. Hope it's still enjoyable!
> 
> (I feel that Naruto is becoming the comic relief to Gaara's quiet angsting. I promise Gaara will get a bit more comfortable! He's just in a kind of foreign place with people he doesn't really know, and he doesn't have that much experience dealing with people, so.)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly because I think time travel is way too much fun to fuck around with. Also because Gaara and Naruto are both terrible actors, and it would be interesting to see what they would do in each other's shoes. So here. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!
> 
> (and I will severely fuck with all the timelines. All of them)


End file.
